The subject line you put on your email is one of the two most important aspects of whether your email gets opened or instantly deleted.
As I talked about last issue, over 60% of your prospects are going to use the “from” line to weed out a lot of emails. But the second indicator that will be looked at to see if your email is worthy of a deeper look is the subject line.
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Earlier today, I was talking with my staff about another case where a lettershop, with the help of a postal worker, falsified 3602 forms to show a larger quantity of mail had mailed than actually went out.
In my experience a lettershop or printer, with or without the help of a postal worker, will often mail only 1/4 or 1/2 of a mailing and pocket the rest of the postage money.
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One major problem with most “image” advertising is that when prospects are done looking at it, they are not sure what to do with their new-found knowledge.
The reason is, the copywriter did not tell them what to do. The ads are missing what direct response copywriters know as a “call to action.”
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You may be interested to know that if you are using more direct response in your marketing, you are not alone. According to the marketing research firm The Winterberry Group, there has been a shift in marketing expenditures toward more direct response.
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In my speeches at conferences and in-house seminars, I talk about 12 common blunders on marketing websites.
Each and every one of them can impact the effectiveness of your website. One of these blunders is in the use of the navigation bar and navigational choices.
The cause of distractions that will greatly depress your results
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The fact is that the Web offers an easy and fairly inexpensive venue to try out everything—from a bold new concept, to comparing headlines, to very subtle little changes to see how they will affect response.
We know of many marketers who routinely use their Web sites as a way to test new ideas before they try them in the mail or in print.
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When you send emails to your clients and prospects, always remember that you are building a relationship with each communication you send.
So make sure every email counts
Make sure that every email offers your prospects something valuable they can take away from the email and put to use.
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How long are callers waiting to talk to a live person about your product? Do you know?
If it's more than 25 seconds, it is too long. Actually the industry-wide objective is that 80% of calls should be answered by a live person within 25 seconds—an objective that’s seldom actually met.
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Since the advent of the Web, an interesting phenomenon has occurred: It has become more difficult for marketers to accurately track the response from their mailings.
Many multichannel marketers have as many as 50% of their orders untracked (I have one client who's untracked orders looks to be up to 70%). Most marketers will be in the 30% to 40% range.
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In direct response you want your copy to move your prospect right along. The "Bucket Brigade" are transitional words and phrases used to keep your prospect reading and moving easily through your piece.
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Over 40 million Americans will move this year. And of those, a startling 35% will not complete a change of address form with the post office.
That means if you rely on National Change of Address (NCOA) data to update your mailing list, you are going to miss more than a third of your bad addresses every year.
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Marketers can and should test every individual campaign to see where they can improve customer response and learn important information for the future.
By testing only one variable (such as teaser copy, price, offer or format), you can see what makes a difference, and what does not. This information will lead to a higher return on investment with each mailing.
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Thrilling Results! Amazing ROI! Rip Roaring Response Rates!
Why your company should look into 3D direct marketing!
When you've got a high margin product to sell to a small group of hard-to-reach executives or very wealthy prospects, very few marketing techniques work as well as 3D direct mail.
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Marketers can and should test every individual campaign to see where they can improve customer response and learn important information for the future.
By testing only one variable (such as teaser copy, price, offer or format), you can see what makes a difference, and what does not. This information will lead to a higher return on investment with each mailing.
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If you do trade show marketing, here’s a story of how to make it dramatically more profitable.
One of our successful relationship building campaigns was conducted on behalf of Velocity Trade. Designed to target attendees of a trade show, direct response communications were scheduled to arrive, as usual, both before and after the trade show. (Most conferences allow for pre-requested magalogs, which can be a powerful tool in generating traffic to your booth. Post-show magalogs should use a conversion series. For more information, call me at 310-212-5727.
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People love seeing their own name, and when you incorporate it into your copy, response rates go up.
If you aren't currently using personalization in your direct mail
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Marketers can and should test every individual campaign to see where there is room for improvement.
By changing only one variable like product, target audience, offer, creative, or format with each test, you can figure out how to generate a higher return on investment with future mailings.
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Make your company's corporate web site the most effective it can be!
For most marketers, their corporate website violates direct marketing rules and is a non or anti-marketing site. Signs of this include...
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Your prospects are not looking or waiting to read your marketing material. Therefore, if you want their business, your copy needs to speak to their interests and their needs.
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